BMC opens doors to Redevelopment of 35,000 Buildings in Mumbai

At least 35,000 old buildings in Mumbai has got clearance for redevelopment as per recent regulation change from The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). These buildings have exhausted their FSI.

FSI is Floor Space Index. This stands for the ratio between the built up area to the area of that plot (land) on which a building stands. This numeric value indicates the total amount of area (on all floors) you can build upon a plot.

The BMC will offer 40 per cent of the total built-up area (BUA) as an incentive to the housing societies. A society can use the proceeds from the sale of this incentive to meet the construction cost of their own building.

They will not charge any kind of premium or extra cost for the same. This will only be applicable for buildings which are more than 30 years old.

For example, if the built-up area (BUA) of one particular building is 10,000 sqft, with BMC’s new incentive policy, the building will be allowed construction of extra 4,000 sqft so that they can sell it in the open market and meet the construction cost of their original area.

This Development Control Regulation (DCR) of the BMC will help those buildings which are not interested to be a part of the cluster development scheme (CDS) but might pose a threat to the scheme.

The government’s CDS is facing several obstacles at each stage with developers unwilling to share more benefits and residents posing stiff opposition for cluster development. The residents were left with no option but to live in dangerous buildings and wait endlessly until they collapsed.

Due to lack of profit, no developer wants to take up redevelopment of such buildings and it will be expensive for cooperative societies to undertake redevelopment on their own. The new DCR will be paving way for the redevelopment of such individual buildings.

“Over 35,000 buildings in the city are more than 30 years old and have no FSI left. The future of these buildings is at stake and there is no scope of future redevelopment for them. These buildings, if ignored, will eventually get dilapidated and amount to loss of life and property. We had to think about them and now we have come up with an option,” said Ajoy Mehta, Municipal Commissioner